“Barry Diawadou Leader of Guinean Independance. Executed at Camp Boiro in 1969″ via a screenshot from the video, Camp Boiro: 45 years later on YouTube

The state-backed history of Guinea is selective in who it remembers and forgets, meaning that important historical figures who were not loyal to the dictatorship established after independence and still in place nearly sixty years later seldom get the lip service they deserve from the country's leadership.

On national holidays not one word is uttered in commemoration of Barry Diawadou, or Barry Ibrahima, also known as Barry III.

Neither does the state recognise many of the others who lie in graves, whose locations are unknown even to their relatives, that it slandered, arrested, expropriated, tortured and finally killed. No attempt has been made to rehabilitate these heroes posthumously and recognise their achievements in the independence struggle, and yet their executioners are praised often enough.

Barry Diawadou and Barry Ibrahima were leaders of the Guinean Independence before they fell victim to Sékou Touré's predatory post-independence regime. Sékou Touré was elected as the first President of Guinea, serving from 1958 to his death in 1984. He imprisoned or exiled his strongest opposition leaders. It is estimated that 50,000 people were killed under his regime.

Diawadou in particular, stands as compelling figure in the country's exit from colonialism.

A graduate of the department of Administration at the Ecole Normale William Ponty de Gorée, Diawadou served in World War II and obtained the rank of chief sergeant. He was elected several times as a member of the French National Assembly.

In an article published on the website “La Plume Plus”, Mody Boubakar Diallo writes:

He was the first Guinean leader to call on his supporters to vote “no” in the referendum proposed by General De Gaulle [on membership of the French Community]. Moreover, he was the first leader to renounce all the benefits he was entitled to from France, namely his veteran's pension, his property, his salary as a member of the French National Assembly, and his French nationality; all for the sole purpose of promoting the transformation of his country towards full independence through patriotism. In 1959, some months after independence, he flatly refused France's offer to put at his disposal a salary and army in exchange for a “yes” vote, thus avoiding bloodshed for his people. [Ed:The referendum requested by France asked whether, after independence, Guinea would wish to remain within a newly formed francophone commonwealth]. It should also be noted that Barry Diawadou narrowly saved President Sékou Touré by advising him not to board a military aircraft bound for Dakar. The reason [for his advice] was simple, the French wanted to throw [Touré] out over the sea after his speech on August 25, 1958, addressed to De Gaulle.

A man of true intellectual honesty and an exemplary sense of public good. Some could say he was “too honest to succeed in politics”. This is probably true… Many among them remember a meeting that took place with Sékou Touré on the eve of the referendum. He [Touré] came to him [Diawadou] and said in essence: “The fate of Guinea is in your hands, everything will depend on you”.

In his own book Expérience Guinéenne et Unité Africaine, (English: The Guinean Experience and African Unity) Sékou Touré, writing before his descent into total despotism, noted approvingly of Diawadou:

On the eve of the referendum there was, besides the Guinean section of the RDA (African Democratic Rally, a sub-group of the PDG, the Democratic Party of Guinea), two main political minority groups: the African Bloc of Guinea (BAG), and the African Socialist Movement (MSA), led respectively by Barry Diawadou and Barry Ibrahima (Barry III), who were both later killed by their [shared] adversary. The “agreement” between these two parties and the PDG took place during the very first days of independence. Sékou Touré could then gloat and declare that “our people had risen above the petty disagreements which divided the country into numerous political parties”; and claim that their “unity” made possible “Guinea's full political and moral significance”. The population had just rejected the French Community, with more than 94% [voting ‘No’], at the request of all party leaders. But was it truly a matter of agreement, or unity? […] This shady deal among the general staff was nothing more than a death sentence for the minority parties. Certainly, their two leaders had entered the PDG government. But in practice, they were already cut off from their base, which was, in some way, immediately swallowed up by a single party.

The cunning Sékou Touré, meanwhile, was already a dictator-in-the-making.

Barry Diawadou fell victim to an adversary [Sékou Touré] more comfortable in “dirty-dealing politics” than in building a nation. History is full of dirty tricks whereby the cheaters and the ignorant take precedence over the honest and capable. […] What can we take away from this ?

The website campboiro.org describes Sékou Touré's persecution of Barry Diawadou and his family. Diawadou was executed by firing squad in 1969 following his trial and conviction in absentia of plotting against the regime.

His father, his brothers, one of his sons, two nephews, and a son-in-law all spent time behind bars. Diawadou's brother also died a prisoner. Below is a video which retraces the memories of families in this prison:

Camara Kaba 41, in his book Dans la Guinée de Sékou Touré: Cela a Bien eu Lieu, (English: Living in Sékou Touré's Guinea: How it Happened)offers a harrowing description of the fate of a group of political prisoners under the Touré regime:

They were unrecognisable with their extreme gauntness and especially their months-old beards. To the left of Fodéba, his friend Fofana Karim, Minister of Mines and Geology. Kaman was on the far right. They dug their graves under the the bayonets of the soldiers of yesterday.